I've been waiting for the dust to settle down before covering the Kentucky situation too much, but unfortunately this is a situation that seems to get more and more bizarre as the days go by.

So let's review the whole story...

It all really began last year, when Democratic Kentucky Governor Candidate Steve Beshear ran and won his election on a platform of expanding the gambling laws in Kentucky to increase state revenues. He won that election by a margin of 59% to 41%. No matter how you look at it, hat is a mandate to change the gambling laws in your state.

But nobody was expecting the steps he was going to take.

Beshear wasted no time. Barely in office, in February he introduced legislation to allow casinos in Kentucky, and claimed that his plan would generate hundreds of millions in increased revenues. Fine.

However, somewhere between February and September, Beshear realized that brick and mortar casinos are no longer the preferred destination for young gaming dollars. Additionally, the looming recession was indicating that land-based casinos were no longer a sure bet in tough economic times. While people might still gamble during a recession, they are more likely to gamble somewhere convenient, like online.

Thus, Beshear's revenue-generating plan had a major fly in the ointment. His planned casinos could become money-losing pink elephants, while all of his expected gaming revenue still flew out of state.

Beshear had a choice: He could reverse course and champion expanded online gambling, which would be a tough sell in his jurisdiction. Or he could ignore his Democratic ideals, create a state monopoly, and trample on the freedoms of Internet users worldwide.

He made the wrong decision.

In September, the state of Kentucky quietly filed a suit to seize the domains of 141 gambling sites. And was successful.

I have to give credit where it is due, because this was a novel and creative approach to the issue. By labeling the sites as gambling "devices" the state was able to convince a judge that this was a reasonable request.

The ambush nature of this court action took the industry by surprise. Not surprisingly, companies were able to send lawyers in to file an immediate appeal and get a court injunction to keep the sites running during the process. Unfortunately, while the companies were able to keep the sites online temporarily, they were unable to get the judge to dismiss the case outright.

And this is where things started to get really disturbing.

In his latest ruling, the judge wrote, "The Internet... is still not above the law, whether on an international or municipal level."

Nobody disagrees with that statement, but the problem is jurisdiction.  Online gambling is completely legal in other jurisdictions, so why is the state of Kentucky deciding the legality of the activity?

Should we allow the courts in Iran to decide whether or not Budweiser gets to keep its domain? Should we allow the courts in Canada to decide whether gun manufacturers get to keep their domains? Should we allow Texas to decide whether porn sites get to keep their domains?

Did the judge consider any of this when making his ruling? Apparently not. His quote: "This doomsday argument does not ruffle the Court."

The implications of this ruling are starting to sink in, and the rest of the world is starting to take notice. They are starting to realize that the ordinary rules of law do not apply to the American south - and the rest of the world can suffer as a result.

The judge did allow one concession. The sites in question have until November 17th to block access to their sites from Kentucky, and if they comply they will be freed from the seizure order.

However, in a final insult, the judge made a stipulation that the blocking must be demonstrated in court. Contrary to common belief, the domain owners do not look like they will be forced to appear in court, but can have "agents" perform the demonstration for them. I am assuming that means "lawyers".

So what now?

Well, now we play the waiting game. Several sites have claimed they will ignore the order and will trust their domain registrars to protect their domains. That's a nice bluff, but the bottom line is that a domain registrar will only go so far to protect a company that is paying it $8.95 per year to license a domain.

I suspect most of the currently affected sites will comply with the blocking order, if only to get past this first hurdle before formally appealing the decision in a higher court.

And an appeal is definitely necessary. Once Kentucky sets the bar, it will only be a matter of time before other states file their own lawsuits and get online gambling blocked from their jurisdictions as well.

And then comes the lawsuits against porn and pretty much anything else as well.

So what can the average guy do?

Well, I'm rarely a fan of boycotts as an effective way of fighting injustice, but in the case of Kentucky it might be the only effective way to make a point.

Kentucky earns a disproportionate amount of state revenues from the horse racing and thus gambling industries. It would only be proper to fight fire with fire and honor a boycott of all Kentucky-based gambling enterprises, such as the Kentucky Derby, Churchill Downs, and TwinSpires.com.

So that is why I'm following the lead of a few other sites and am calling on anybody who believes the actions of Kentucky are unjust and improper to hereby boycott all Kentucky-based gambling businesses.

In fact, I don't think a boycott of Kentucky gambling goes far enough. Since Kentucky's actions are so broad-ranging and can affect international commerce, it is only fitting that we also apply the boycott to other prominent Kentucky industries, such as delicious Kentucky bourbon.

I would also apply it to Kentucky Fried Chicken, but I think most people already have self-imposed KFC boycotts in place for health reasons.

Internet Blackout?

The actions of Kentucky could ultimately result in the morals of a few being imposed on the many, and this affects us all, no matter what industry you are in or where you live.

Since this is an issue with such broad consequences in terms of Internet freedoms, I think somebody should propose an Internet Blackout Week for Kentucky.

The rest of the Internet should give the state of Kentucky a taste of what it is proposing.

Choose a week. Any week. And let the entire Internet block the state of Kentucky from accessing the Internet. Let's see how they react then.